'Expendables 2' relentless action

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Liz Braun, QMI Agency

Aug 16, 2012

, Last Updated: 12:14 PM ET

The Expendables 2 goes something like this: BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! RATT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-!!! KAPOW! KAPOW! KAPOW! BOOM!!! And like that. For about two hours. The action is so completely non-stop that during certain sequences people start laughing in disbelief.

It's relentless, in the best sort of way. And it's funny.

For simple entertainment value, you can't do much better at the box office right now than The Expendables 2. Every known action hero is in this thing, and there are a few new ones in the making here; as a sniper, Liam Hemsworth gets to put aside cute lil' Miley Cyrus and all that PG-13 Hunger Games nonsense and blow heads off at close range. With splatter noises. Yergh.

Against a soundtrack of vintage rock songs, our heroes dispatch the bad guys and do their mercenary best to address the imbalance between good and evil. Killing To The Oldies looks exciting: You get hand-to-hand combat with kidnappers, a tank attack, helicopter explosions, a knife fight, a massacre with kitchen utensils, zip line action, bullets to the head at close range and an attack on an airplane, and all before the opening credits.

After that, the fight for a mine full of plutonium turns into a war of revenge between Stallone and the good guys, and Jean-Claude Van Damme and Scott Adkins as the villains. (Not to worry: There's never enough plot to get in the way). Lots of stuff blows up good, and when the going gets rough, count on a deus ex machina in the way of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Chuck Norris to turn up and kill whoever needs killing.

The general consensus is that Expendables 2 is better than the original Expendables, so if this kind of super-violent action is your cup of tea, you won't be disappointed.